Sadly that was my experience too with the Tim Thompson mangoes. I planted one of the "Antonio" varieties (supposedly his hardiest one -- he claimed it took 25F with minimal damage) in San Jose and even with protection it completely fried at about 28F. I know of others who planted them in the Santa Cruz area and also lost theirs despite protection from cold, next to Avocados that had no damage. I have two that made it through the winter in their pots, but that was in a frost free location in the East Bay, which sort of defeats the point. (I've had La Verne Manila trees make it through the winter here in the East Bay just fine...the main problem is that we don't get enough heat for them to really grow.)

I also never got 5 of the 10 trees I ordered from him, but I don't know if there's a point anymore.

Wow, haven't heard that yet on other fruit forums but doesn't surprise me! He seemed real but to much hype about cold hardiness that doesn't seem real!Sorry to hear many of yours fried Barath, I still have one you gifted me in green house I was going to plant outside but weather this year is cooler than normal (what ever that means any more). We've been very windy and cool because of up welling of Ocean. Would be nice to fruit one of these mango's to check out taste!

This is very disappointing news! I had hoped they might prove to be something special. Axels post here a while back seemed to suggest they were proving good at his new place, so perhaps they might at least expand the potential for marginal areas like SoCal, if not give true tolerance to cold further north. I did think the marketing about growing mangos wherever avocados could grow seemed a bit of a stretch: in my country avocados grow almost everywhere and mango grow almost nowhere!

Barathr, I don't know the San Jose climate very well, did the mango have a lot of warmth before the cold event, or did it sit in long cool conditions first? I have found mangos planted here will grow slowly for about 2-3 years and then die when the temp. drops to about 36F, while the same cv. at my in-laws area in the subtropics can handle short duration 23F with only minor leaf burning. Seems to be no doubt that mango trees need consistent warmth to be able to handle frost, unlike many other trees that seem to handle frost better if they have along cool-down period first.

Mangos seem to have a very narrow limit for any kind of cold tolerance . I used to take Honey or etc Mangos from the market and sense which one had viable seeds and sprout them. I would find a few that took down to 28F under a roof in winter but when it dropped to the mid 20s and lower, it was toast; at least in a 5 gallon pot, suspect it would of taken more cord, it had been rooted in, in an area where the soil was not cold and wet.

DavidLJ48 wrote:Mangos seem to have a very narrow limit for any kind of cold tolerance . I used to take Honey or etc Mangos from the market and sense which one had viable seeds and sprout them. I would find a few that took down to 28F under a roof in winter but when it dropped to the mid 20s and lower, it was toast; at least in a 5 gallon pot, suspect it would of taken more cord, it had been rooted in, in an area where the soil was not cold and wet.

But there is more to it than this David, as those of us in cool but frost-free climates know. Mangos seem to lack the ability to grow well without heat, unlike other trees like avocado, cherimoya, white sapote etc that will just thrive in cool climates. The most exciting thing for me about these new mangos was the possibility of selection for extended cool-tolerance. Nothing in this thread has suggested this is not the case yet, and if the story of the collection/selection process is true then there is still good potential for cool-tolerance in these trees.

The comment Axel made still seems pretty valid to me;

It's clear that these mangoes were selected to thrive in Southern California's conditions. That alone makes them worth trying to grow. They should be much more reliable producers even if they don't have any special hardiness.

Ben makes a good point. I sometimes think it's the "cool" more than the "cold". Here we can get high thirties in a typical Winter and some good frosts. Rarely we get a few hours of near or actual freeze. But our Spring/Summer/Fall weather is "cool", for the most part. If we break 70F we are very lucky (depending on how you like your temps, of course).

So I might be able to have mangos grow unprotected. My neighbor is trying pineapples that I gave him, unprotected. One has even bloomed, but I don't think they will amount to much. The plants don't look happy. In contrast, my pineapples in a simple plastic film covered, unheated greenhouse, are doing very well. Two weeks ago I cut a 6.7 lb specimen, this past week, 4.8 lb. And they're wonderful.

So in the same greenhouse I am working on a Glen mango espalier. All but the top tier is done and it blooms like a house-on-fire. This year I've allowed one fruit per panicle.

A little less protected is a manila seedling in a high tunnel and it's also setting well.

These trees get nothing special in the Winter other than a string of C9 lights on nights below 40F (probably has very little impact, but it looks nice). But what they do get is the added day warmth from being either entirely or partially enclosed.

Steve, I think growing these new mangos in your greenhouse might lift the potential to another level again. Or then again maybe I'm just buying into the hype!

You must hit 70F pretty consistently over the summer surely?

On the bright side our consistently cool (but not truely cold) climates are ideal for simple greenhouse structures, where we don't need to worry so much about excessive summer heat. Do you have any heating or thermal mass in your structure? I'm dreaming of building another structure for fruit, thinking of letting the rain in. Rain seems to create better growth than stored water. I'm thinking of close-fitted hoops that slow down air transfer enough to lift the temperature a lot, but still let the rain come in. The result should be a very humid, warm enclosure. Good for bananas and other humidity-lovers, not ideal for mangos probably.

There may be parts of Los Osos that reach into the 70's consistently during the Summer (more likely in the early Fall), but not here. We live in a persistent fog pocket and marine cooling is the dominant weather feature. But in the high tunnel right now it's 77F and will rise higher (the sun came out weakly about 10:30 am) while in the fully enclosed greenhouse it is much warmer, but pretty sharply graded from floor to roof (no circulation fan but an solar auto-vent in the roof). That seems to be enough.

No thermal mass. The greenhouse is so small (6'x6') that any thermal mass which would be meaningful would take up way too much space. And since the high tunnel is open at one end with a small transom opening at the opposite end, there's no point.

Rain is surely a better irrigator than I am, and I did wish during our happily wet Winter that I could peel away the covers (way too much trouble), but it may be that for the mangos in our cold, damp ground when they would normally be in a dry season, it's better to control the water.

Yeah, the humidity for mangos might not be best. My manila was very prone to fungal problems early on although it seems to have more or less outgrown that. Now it's just the dreaded mealy bugs.